***
Chuck Splatter followed, filtering through the pulsating dome, crash landing onto a carpeted floor. It was graceless and disastrous, thudding loudly once making contact. The crash knocked the lost opportunity from his mind. He rubbed his back, surprised that he had come out as clean as he had entered, then continued to examine the room that was the eagle’s nest. The walls were made of double sided mirrors. He was capable of seeing out of those mirrors, viewing different sections, hot sauce cauldrons, conveyor belts and everything else that was inside of the hot sauce factory. None of these things were able to see him, however. He then looked over to the other side of the room, where there was a minimal office desk infected with Sammy and Wilsie, ferreting its papered contents, turning the drawers inside out.
“Damnit, there’s nothing here!”
Chuck Splatter could hear Wilsie muster these words in aggravation. But the desk had nothing to offer, as Wilsie then looked around for more opportunities. She looked over to the double sided mirror by the desk. Hanging from the window was a shelf. Wilsie walked towards the shelf, with inspective intentions, as there appeared to be an object that would reward her for these intentions. She grabbed the object, analyzing its potential, discerning that the object was a trophy. The base was heavy, made from dense marble, and mounted on top of the marble was a sculpted figure, holding out its arms, symbolizing philanthropy. A small plaque was clipped to the base, engraved with:
This award is presented to Mad Ted for his
humane services in clothing the homeless.
“It’s an award for his humane services,” concluded Wilsie, proud of her deduction. It was nothing that she could use in her next article, but it was a fine discovery, nonetheless. It reinforced Wilsie’s assumption that she was a great investigative journalist, as she remembered her chapter in her book that assumed Mad Ted’s award for clothing the homeless with his advertised t-shirts and stickers. Sammy Ammo walked over to Wilsie, to analyze her discovery. He grabbed the trophy, reading the engraving. Each word slipped through his thoughts like feathers tickling his toes, as Sammy Ammo began laughing at the irony.
“I have a hard time believing that the most opulent ruler puppetteering Awful, Ohio with tyrannical dictations was given an award for humanity,” recited Sammy Ammo. He threw the trophy to the floor, hoping to break it. But the carpet coating the floor was too deep, gently catching the trophy like a caring mother.
The trophy rolled beside Chuck Splatter. He ignored it, as he stood up from the floor after rubbing his back. He continued watching Wilsie, as she progressed to the filing cabinet with Sammy, viewing her as a conartist and a fraud. It was clear to Chuck that she was guided by her alternative motives, rather than Sammy’s destiny. But she was covering them up well, as Sammy didn’t appear to have any idea. Wilsie and Sammy were collaborating their ideas elegantly, breaking into every drawer of the filing cabinet, communicating with effortless expressions that resulted in clear understanding. Chuck regretted not having talked to Sammy on the roof, displeased for losing what he believed to be his only moment to express to Sammy his concerns of Wilsie’s true intentions. He watched Sammy, enchantingly engaged in a criminalizing activity with someone else, as he thought that that could’ve been him instead. The visual was a heavy loaded cannon pointing directly at Chuck’s heart, but even heavier was watching Sammy Ammo being deceived by Wilsie’s alternative motives.
Chuck Splatter turned away from the painful scene, to study the rest of the room. It was fairly empty, deeply carpeted, and mostly bare, as the humane trophy was the only piece of decoration in the room. Chuck continued gyrating his figure, until he took notice of Doink, circling another fixture that was in the room. Doink was surrounding a long tube that stretched from the deeply carpeted floor to the ceiling. The tube was wide enough to hold plenty of professionally dressed blazers, as Chuck thought that it was a closet, sporting all of Mad Ted’s wardrobes. Doink was grazing his fingers against the surface. It was smooth and warm, appearing to be made entirely from one piece. But his fingers clipped into a subtle groove. Doink redirected his fingers, following the lining of the groove, which outlined a sealed entrance to the tube. The entrance was large enough for a person to fit through.
“Hey, what is this?” asked Doink, as he stepped back, fearing that it was an alien structure, waiting to abduct him.
“It’s just a closet, Doink,” grumbled Chuck, emotionally discouraged from pursuing further into their expedition, fearing that his last opportunity to recover his value as Sammy’s cohort was long lost.
Wilsie, who was growing discouraged from finding no article-worthy information, repositioned herself towards the long tube after overhearing Doink’s question. She left behind trails of papers that she didn’t bother to return to their original drawers, surrounding the tube in the same manor that Doink had, studying it suspiciously, finding the exact same groove that Doink had found. She outlined it with her fingers, discovering that it was an entrance large enough for a person to fit through.
“This is a changing chute,” she concluded. “They are usually inside the locker rooms, but this one appears to be located in the eagle’s nest.”
Sammy walked over to the chute to study its contents, impressed with Wilsie’s discovery, thinking that it may lead them to the reason they were in the eagle’s nest.
“Mad Ted must be inside of the changing chute,” concluded Sammy Ammo, looking at Wilsie engagingly, excited to remove the contents that he believed would deliver him to the computer processing chip that he sought. “Open it. Let’s get him out of there.”
Doink feared Mad Ted, and the complexity of the changing chute. He had remembered the stranger and his message regarding Mad Ted in Loogie’s, and he had remembered the implausible features that the changing chute had, the ones that Wilsie had described to them. He was fearful of what the changing chute was capable of, stepping away, wrapping his arms around the torso of his body, rubbing his obliques, attempting to comfort what he now considered his vulnerable, innocent body.
Chuck Splatter reexamined his situation, as the changing chute presented another opportunity. Chuck Splatter imagined breaking open the changing chute’s entrance, discovering the alien in a candid moment, undressed from the human suit that was recognized as Mad Ted. Chuck would quickly snatch the human suit from the alien, and remove the computer processing chip, handing it to Sammy, which would then earn the praise of Sammy Ammo, forever immortalizing their renegade partnership. Hope had reemerged back into Chuck’s life, as he envisioned himself regaining his value with Sammy, acquiring the computer processing chip himself, and physically handing it to Sammy.
“Let’s pry it open!” responded Chuck, enthusiastically.
“Yeah, let’s get this thing open,” encouraged Sammy Ammo. Sammy was growing anxious. He wanted Mad Ted to come pouring out of the tube, exposed as a foreign being from another planet, possessing a computer processing chip of great magnitude. He wanted that computer processing chip and everything else that would result from possessing it. He imaged all of his dominance, restructuring a new empire that would overcome Awful, Ohio, as he was highly encouraging, gesturing to Chuck with his coagulated fin to open the changing chute. “Chuck, open that chute!”
“This is my chance,” thought Chuck, as he eagerly cruised towards the chute, anticipating the exposed alien, and its vulnerable human suit with the computer processing chip. Chuck placed his fingers in the groove that outlined the entrance and attempted to remove the seal. But the groove was too shallow, resisting any attempts to provide a strong grip. Chuck Splatter pulled with all his strength, but the changing chute held its position, breaking the tip of every fingernail. Chuck winced back, embarrassed that Sammy had watched his failed attempt, holding his bleeding fingers close to his body for warmth.
“I’m sorry, Sammy,” mumbled Chuck, stepping away from the chute with his bleeding fingers.
“Oh for Christ’s sake,” responded Sammy, annoyed at the failed at
tempts. “Can’t anyone do anything around here?” Chuck whimpered like a scolded dog, hunching his back with the rivets in his spine protruding from his shirt. Sammy raised his fin that was coagulated with his pistol. He pulled the trigger, releasing a heart shaped bullet. The determined bullet traveled mercilessly, but deflected off of the strong metal coating the chute. The bullet ricocheted throughout the room, until it finally broke free from one of the windows. Wilsie looked over to Sammy Ammo, mockingly stating, “do you have any other bright ideas?”
But before he could react to Wilsie’s sarcasm, the changing chute sputtered a noise like a coughing muffler. The four of them looked at the changing chute, waiting for something to happen. They anticipated the front entrance to open like a swinging door. But as they watched, piece by piece, the outlined door began to deconstruct. Pieces the size of gum-sticks began to dematerialize, rapidly debuilding, disappearing into the black material inside the changing chute.
The four of them stood still, with the exception of Doink, who began stepping further away from the changing chute, fearing that it would open a black hole into the eagle’s nest, teleporting him to another galaxy of a probing alien race that would inspect every nook and crevice of the precious body that he held tightly to.
The door dematerialized. The large entrance that had been fully sealed was now entirely exposed. Wilsie, Sammy, and Chuck all stood their ground, gazing inside of the chute from where they were, each projecting an incriminating visual of Mad Ted that could be used for extortion, to help them acquire the computer processing chip. But instead, their visual expectations were obstructed with what appeared to be a deep pool of oil. The inside of the changing chute was pure black, dense, and invulnerable to the exposure of light. The temperature in the room began to disappear, overwhelming the four intruders with frightening unfamiliarity. They all started stepping backwards, watching the entrance, waiting for the deep pool of oil to stretch from its chamber like a massive demon tongue that would boil them into the fiery stomach of eternal damnation.
“Maybe we should get out of here,” suggested Doink. But the other three remained, frozen with fear, incapable of looking away, anticipating the advent of Awful, Ohio’s occultic prophet. And then, breaking free from the vertical surface of the black pool of oil, was a bare foot. It stepped forward, proceeding with a leg, that was then followed by its attached body. Sammy Ammo, Wilsie McHickoryboob, Chuck Splatter, and Doink McTriggers all watched in revelation, looking up at a man tall enough for his liberated scalp to scrape the top of the ceiling.
The man emerged wearing a long, clean lab coat, white as a pearl, draping to his thin ankles. The sleeves were long and clean, protecting his little wrists, as the coat appeared to be freshly pressed, wrinkle free with perfect creases scaling down the sides of his legs. His head was hairless, as well as his face, wind resistant, as he glided towards the desk using angelic motions. His eyes were embedded in thick sunglasses, preventing all eye contact, abolishing all obligations to acknowledge the surrounding existence.
His graceful motions carried him towards the desk, gliding over the scorn paperwork scattered over the floor and desk. He bent his wrist, which clicked with each receding degree, locking onto the back of the chair with the tips of his skeletal fingers. The chair pulled out from underneath the desk, positioning directly beneath the man’s malleable body, which reshaped accordingly to the dictation of the chair. The combined beings hovered beneath the desk, easily and comfortably, securely packaged. His arms raised, with each limb landing on top of the desk, uniting sacredly like fevered lovers, as each finger interlocked fluidly like the tentacles of mating squid. He lowered his head towards the direction of the four intruders, as he was still taller than all of them. His lips began to unravel, chapping away the halcyon layer of degenerated skin, calmly remarking through the concealed identity of the sunglasses, “how can I assist you?”
Sammy, Wilsie, and Chuck all looked at one another, then looked back at Doink, who was pressed hard against the glass wall, hoping that the pane would pop from its mold, colliding into the ground with him riding on top like a kamikaze surfer, protecting his body with death from any otherworldly experience. The cold tipped pistol in Sammy’s fin pressed against Wilsie’s back, as Sammy pushed Wilsie forward to conduct the interrogation. She hesitantly approached the desk, staring at the hairless man whose eyes were still concealed inside of the sunglasses. He had a hard smile, eagerly pleased about something that the four intruders were unaware of, as they all had a face of deeply seeded concern.
“Are you Mad Ted?” asked Wilsie.
The man was Mad Ted. He remained sitting behind the desk, with his fingers still intertwining into one another like braided rope. Never before had the eagle’s nest been infested with beings that were not Mad Ted. He was in a state of unfamiliarity, having been the only person to have ever been inside of the eagle’s nest. But he had been programmed with etiquette, aware of the importance of making eye contact when engaging in conversations. He raised both hands to the sides of the sun glasses embedding his eyes. The tips of his fingers locked onto keys that protruded from each half of his glasses. Slowly, he started twisting the keys, as each glass curled open like a can of sardines, revealing his eyes soaking in preserving liquid. Each eye was the size of a baseball, with bloodshot veins stitching through the porcelain surface, as they stared back at Wilsie. His response crept cautiously from his lips, dripping with the viscosity of hot wax, elegantly ejecting his responses with the grace of a soliloquy.
“Yes, I am Mad Ted. Or, I am the being that has been deduced as the being to be entitled as Mad Ted, which I’m assuming is largely in part of the condimental product that has been created by myself, deducing me as a creature of madness because of unfathomable complexity.”
Mad Ted spoke mechanically. The intruders pretended to hear the subtle sounds of compressed pistons, faintly in the background, hydraulically unhinging the gears in Mad Ted’s jaw. Wilsie was pleased with her own accomplishment, overlooking the automated behavior. Discovering Mad Ted in the location where she predicted him to be located was an honorary reward, as she thought that it reflected highly of her credentials as an investigative journalist. She was now bound to advancing the expedition through the execution of an austere interview, as a slew of questions thrashed through her mind. But she sustained her compossure, resorting to her journalistic integrity, remaining calm, taking the interview one question at a time.
“Well, that’s good to hear, Mad Ted,” recited Wilsie with pretension, hoping to conduct the interview professionally, regardless of the unannounced appearance into Mad Ted’s private quarters. “I’ve been looking to get an interview for a long time. My name is Wilsie McHickoryboob. I am a journalist for the Awful Gazette.”
Wilsie approached the desk, with her pony tail wagging eagerly, showing Mad Ted her identification. It was a plastic card, saying “Awful Gazette Press Pass,” photographing a headshot that was taken a brief second before unleashing a sneeze that squished her face into what resembled colliding potatoes. Wilsie then stepped back, continuing her interview.
“I have some questions that I’d like to ask you, so that I may post them in the next issue of the Awful Gazette.” She spoke with jest, excited to be so close to receiving the interview that would be a landmark moment for her career. Her excitement flocked through the flesh that constituted her body, fluidly gyrating.
“Continue,” acknowledged Mad Ted, assertively forceful with his response. His large irises remained locked onto Wilsie, with each stitching of blood-gushed vein pulsing softly within the gelatinous compound that structured his baseball-sized eyes. They were listening intently at what it was that Wilsie was going to say.
Wilsie blushed immensely, with her pony tail swinging excitedly behind her head, eager to fully engage in the moment that she had been desiring her entire career. She stood in the same spot, unaffected by Mad Ted’s large, pummeling eyes, exhaling repeatedly to gather her nerves, until the words that
she had been preparing her entire career were finally released from her locking mouth.
“Mad, can I call you Mad?” she began, fluttering her ears, reduced to girlish charm because of the flattery. “There have been a lot of theories on how you have come to earn your success. Can you enlighten us on how you have come to earn everything that you have obtained?”
Mad Ted exhausted some heated breath that chortled like a laughing muffler. The question was broad and incapable of being served with a resolution of a simple reply. His mind began scanning through the recorded scripture that encrypted his thoughts, searching for the solution to the compound equation that Wilsie had presented to him. He located a few sources that deemed most appropriate. Mad Ted unhinged his jaw with the subtle noise of hydraulic pistons that the intruders pretended to hear.
“I have been engineered by divine sources that have embedded within me the formulaic efficiency that is necessary for birthing the success that is surrounding.”
“Divine sources?” quickly responded Wilsie McHickoryboob, cooing with impressive noises. “Where do these divine sources come from?”
“Divinity from above has vested within me power to erect a structure that has resulted in everything that is surrounding us,” responded Mad Ted. He spoke with monotone resonance, void of emotions. Wilsie recorded as much as she could on her pad of paper, hoping to expose Mad Ted as being an extraterrestrial entity.
“So you are receiving your plans of strategic execution from sources above?” questioned Wilsie, referring to the aliens.
“Yes,” responded Mad Ted, referring to the sun. “The influence is directed from a source that arises from outer space. There is a large, energy bearing source that distills energy onto everything that is in Awful, Ohio. This energy distillery distills a divine brew that we are suckling on, extracting the contents as feverishly as possible. Those who are capable of obtaining the most energy, will profit greatly with success.” Mad Ted’s expression remained stoic, expelling as little energy as possible for the sanctity of his own energy reserve.
The divinity that Mad Ted was referring to was the sun. He had believed that because of his larger size, he was able to absorb more of the sun’s expelled energy. And because he was receiving more energy than others, he was able to expel more energy, utilizing the energy for the creation of his empire.
“Clearly, he’s referring to the aliens,” concluded Sammy Ammo, factoring Mad Ted’s answers with the mechanized movements that he pretended to hear from Mad Ted’s body. Sammy galvanized in his revelation, believing that he could now be a profound astrophysicist, as he took part in more conclusions from his observations, whispering them all to Chuck. “The aliens are the divine source that is transmitting energy waves to the human suit that this alien is wearing. Certainly, the skull of this alien suit is constructed of some metal alloy that is acting as an antenna, allowing it to catch these alien energy waves, coded with alien intentions, that none of us can catch.”
But regardless of his discovery, Sammy started twitching with frustration, as Wilsie wasn’t making the progress in getting him the highly sought computer processing chip.
“What the hell is Wilsie doing?” Sammy whispered again into Chuck’s ear. The hot breath swirled into Chuck Splatter’s cochlea. It was comforting and reminiscent, reflecting visions of their past crime sprees without Wilsie. Sammy’s skepticism of Wilsie was very rewarding, as Chuck wished to reinforce it with offers of his own doubt.
Chuck whispered back to Sammy, “I don’t know, but she’s blowing the opportunity for you to get that computer processing chip! You have to watch out for Wilsie. I don’t trust her. I think she just wants to conduct an interview for her article and try to get the chip for herself.”
Sammy Ammo meditated on the information that Chuck just presented to him. It flickered through his mind as a possibility, thinking out loud, “Wilsie may be trying to gain the chip for herself. She had expressed that she too is in need of information on Mad Ted, and acquiring the chip for herself would easily fulfill that need, completing her own destiny.” Sammy Ammo continued thinking of the possibility of conflicting interests between him and Wilsie, wondering how many destinies he was going to have to combat in order to fulfill his own.
“I have to get that chip!” grumbled Sammy, easing away from Chuck Splatter, focusing his attention towards Wilsie.
“Hey Wilsie,” shouted Sammy, interrupting the interview. Wilsie turned around to face Sammy. Mad Ted remained in the same statuesque position that he was in. “How about you start asking the right questions, and find out what we came here to find out.” Sammy was tapping his pistol in the open palm of his other hand, reinforcing to her that they were there for his destiny and no one else’s.
Wilsie was compliant, agreeing quickly, showing no signs of being alternatively motivated, throwing her pony tail around. She turned back to Mad Ted, taking a deep breath, inflating her head with composed confidence.
“Mad Ted,” she spoke, “we have come here to acquire your computer processing chip. We know that you are the reason that the aliens are coming to Awful, Ohio. We know that they delivered you to Awful, Ohio, long before it ever became the economic success that it has become, and that your purpose was to create the economic success so that you could herd all of Awful, Ohio, and have them build Awful, Ohio into what it is today!” Wilsie began to pace, reciting her diatribe, unleashing her verbal vengeance onto Mad Ted, on behalf of everyone in Awful, Ohio.
“And we know that you are summoning the aliens from your former planet, to exterminate all of the Awful, Ohio residents, so that the small aliens will be able to inhabit Awful, Ohio once it becomes vacant!” Wilsie pounded her fists onto the desk, snorting through her nostrils like a raging bull, moments away from pulverizing the foreign being because of believing everything that she had just said.
Mad Ted remained at the desk, comfortably tucked into the chair, with his arms remaining in their interlocked position. He looked down at Wilsie and her petite structure, studying her face, analyzing the ears that were recklessly protruding from her head like buckling mackerel. He knew of her associates, having read of Sammy Ammo and his cohorts in the newspapers, running wildly through Awful, Ohio like outlaws. His vision scanned the coagulated pistol that resided within Sammy Ammo’s possession, watching it represent all of the Awful, Ohio citizens that have been attempting to obtain everything that Mad Ted has earned. He mocked them internally, knowing that he’d rather perish than hand over his secrets to the undeserving.
Mad Ted looked down at Wilsie, listening to the gritty noise that fled from her puffing nostrils. He began scanning his memory for the encrypted code that would provide the appropriate solution. The compound equation that Wilsie had presented to him required a large solution. He diligently sifted through everything in his memory, gathering everything that he could. But because he had removed his past from his memory, he wasn’t able to retrieve any honest solutions. The only source of information that he had from his past was the assumed information that he had read from the book written by Wilsie McHickoryboob. He analyzed the assumed origins from the content of the book that remained in his memory, collecting the coded scripture that would appropriately answer the equation. The intruders pretended to hear subtle noises of decompressing hydraulics resonating through the eagle’s nest, as Mad Ted began to offer Wilsie a response for her accusation.
“My name is Theodore Sphinctor. I am not from Awful, Ohio, but I am from planet earth. I consume the same energy from the same sun that we all consume energy from. I entered earth from a womb-portal attached between my mother’s legs. I was rejected by this mother and entered into a grand oak tree, where two individuals assumed the responsibility of parenthood upon my discovery. This consequently transformed me into a member of a family. There were other siblings within this family that I was bore to, but they were unwilling to expand the operation that I had been designed to establish.
“Efficiency had always been the great ingred
ient for my success, which I was ready to earn from within the housing of the family that I was living with. I had accumulated enough money to attempt to buy out the parents that had been ruling over me with strict authority. But instead of offering gratitude for the offer, they were mostly offended. So I was forced to leave the home, where I had embarked for several months, until landing in Awful, Ohio, which I had calculated to contain exceptional conditions to begin the empire that I had sought to erect. I have refocused my attention to everything that is going on here. I have removed most of my past memory that goes beyond my time in Awful, Ohio, because all of the memory that was acquired during that time holds no value. Everything that I experienced and accumulated before entering into Awful, Ohio holds no value, either. I am aware that I had siblings, and two parents. But they were unwilling to help create the purpose of my being, so I was forced to relocate. And so I did. And everything that is around us, was brought here because of a foreign source of greater knowledge that is embedded within me.”
Wilsie McHickoryboob scratched everything down on her note pad as quickly as possible. She watched Mad Ted mechanically move his jaw, pretending to hear the subtle noises of hydraulic pistons with every word emitted from his mouth. She studied his motionless body, listening to the emotionless words that spewed from his mouth. He was perfectly efficient like a machine being remotely controlled from outer space. Wilsie was overwhelmed from his response, believing that he was recollecting this information from his past, rather than collecting it from a book he read about himself that she had written.
Wilsie started believing that she could assume no wrong, after listening to Mad Ted’s story and how similar it was to the book that she had written. She stood there, stargazed, thinking of her own glory, no longer interested in her interview, as she believed that she could assume everything that she wanted to know. But, what she couldn’t assume, was that computer processing chip being physically in her hand.
Mad Ted wasn’t admitting to the alien genesis that had been revealed by the stranger from Loogie’s Diner, nor to his alien brethren that were coming to invade Awful, Ohio, and he wasn’t admitting to the alien that he was, that was secretly controlling him from inside of his head with the power of a computer processing chip, proven by the subtle noises of hydraulics that the intruders pretended to hear. Sammy Ammo listened to the interrogation, increasing in outrage over Wilsie’s inability to extract the information that they had sought. Chuck’s theory on Wilsie had garnered validity, as it was becoming more clear to Sammy that Wilsie was conducting an interview, seeking information for her next article, rather than attempting to discover the information that he sought for his destiny.
“I need that computer processing chip, and I need it now!” grumbled Sammy Ammo.
Heat transferred from the rage growing in Sammy’s body, conducting through his fin and into his pistol. The pistol started glowing like hot coals, releasing steam that floated to the ceiling of the eagle’s nest. Chuck Splatter looked over, watching Sammy, his idol and friend, experiencing the pain of failure at the hands of the deceptive Wilsie, as he recognized Sammy’s disappointment.
Chuck Splatter found this to be intolerable. Sammy’s disappointment transferred into Chuck Splatter, fueling him with rage, influencing him with purpose to rectify Sammy’s disappointment. And at that moment, the only thing that Chuck Splatter knew was that there was an alien inside of the head of that human suit, controlling it with a powerful computer processing chip, that was desired by Sammy Ammo. The purpose to rectify Sammy’s disapointment took control of Chuck’s nerves that unilaterally controlled all of his limbs, guiding him towards the trophy lying on the floor. Chuck grabbed the trophy, flipping it upside down, clenching it like a sledge hammer. Each knuckle turned white, as he strangled the figure that exemplified philanthropy.
Chuck powered towards Wilsie McHickoryboob, pushing her out of his way, continuing his journey, kicking out the desk that separated him and Mad Ted. All eyes were on Chuck. Mad Ted remained stoic, no longer tucked beneath the desk, looking down at Chuck Splatter. Chuck Splatter stared back, looking deeply into Mad Ted’s eyes, searching for life, watching each blood-stitching vein pump blood from the well of its artificial heart. His eyes looked cold with thick irises carved from ice. Mad Ted was about to speak, but Chuck Splatter pretended to hear the sounds of compressing hydraulics, and used every ounce of rage and anger to swing the humane trophy like an ironsmith, with enough power to break through what he believed to be a metal alloy cranium, that acted as the cock-pit to the hamster-sized alien, receiving radio waves from the fleet of aliens approaching Awful, Ohio.
The marble base made solid contact with the cranium of Mad Ted, as Chuck Splatter swung through the target, exhausting all of his emotional buildup, releasing his catharsis. He envisioned sparks and wires and a hamster sized alien evacuating the flesh-vehicle. But instead of a resistant metal alloy, Mad Ted’s cranium collapsed, shattering into a thousand pieces. It was made of organic tissue. Skull and brain burst through the air of the eagle’s nest, splattering against the two sided mirrors and ceiling, spraying all over the changing chute and staining the carpet deeply. The baseball sized eyes disconnected from their optic nerves, popping from their sockets, rolling on the soft carpet, stopping at the feet of Dionk McTriggers. Doink reacted violently, thinking the eyes were alien spy cameras, stomping the large eyes that squished like bursting water balloons.
The trophy that was still clenched by Chuck Splatter, representing Mad Ted’s humane efforts, was covered in thick blood jelly, bits of brain, and splintered skull. The body that was Mad Ted remained stoic, sliding out from the chair, landing on the soft carpet with the same grace that he used to exit the changing chute. His malleable body realigned with the shape of the floor, as Mad Ted silently lay on the soft carpet, unconcerned of the intruders, no longer interested in the interview, only wishing to remain with his creation.
Sammy Ammo and Wilsie McHickoryboob both stared at the body, laying on the floor with the exposed cranium, recognizing the opportunity. They both dove towards the soft, pulpy flesh. They hunched their bodies over the open skull like starving hyenas, gesticulating wildly, arms deep in pulverized brain and splintered skull, madly searching for the computer processing chip. Chuck Splatter stood above the body of Mad Ted, watching Sammy Ammo and Wilsie McHickoryboob, digging through the result of his purpose, hoping that Sammy would see the value in his efforts.
Chapter 17
Operation: Blackout